


To Arrive Where We Started

by Alyndra



Series: John Winchester: In Defense of Family [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Demonic Possession, Episode Tag, Episode: s01e09 Home, Gen, Interrogation, Season 5 knowledge
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 20:52:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4494345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alyndra/pseuds/Alyndra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"We're all in danger, Dean. Be very careful."</p><p>John Winchester hasn't been back to Lawrence in 22 years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To Arrive Where We Started

**Author's Note:**

> Almost all the black characters on this show wind up evil (and dead). But Missouri's mysterious absence after her one episode needed addressing, so I came up with explanatory fic. Alternatively, she could've had the good sense of a psychic to move to Yemen.
> 
> Title quote: "We shall not cease ... and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time." - T.S. Eliot
> 
> ETA: I'm rewriting this, but I decided to leave this imperfect version up until the final one is ready.

The dark figure eyed the fence around the cow pasture consideringly, then with a huff adjusted its path towards the gate. Vaulting over that fence was for lither bodies than the one it was wearing currently.

Once through the gate, it set off determinedly towards the nearest cow. The cow started to amble in the other direction.

The figure scowled, eyes flashing black as void, and the cow toppled over onto its side, lowing pathetically; it was the work of another minute to reach it and then a knife flashed once, swiftly, in the moonlight.

An ornate chalice caught the blood, a finger stirred it, a chant threaded through the air.

"Master?"

"Report."

"John Winchester is gone, Master."

"Unexpected. Hmm. So, the child will need a new guardian, then."

"No, Master. He took both children with him and fled."

"What?" The voice issuing from the swirling blood actually sounded surprised for a moment, before recovering. "Well, we will simply have to plant a new watcher wherever he settles. He will not stay lost forever; if necessary, I can request his location from friends in," he gave a little cough of amusement, "high places."

"Forgiveness, Master. Would it not be easier to kill him, if he is suspicious? The special child can always be placed in a new home, or even raised by us?"

"You did not notice the last time I entrusted one of my special children to my demons? It seems keeping a squalling brat alive instead of ripping its head off is . . . difficult, without tender mercies which demons lack."

He hissed wordlessly. "No. I wish the majority of my little experiments to reach adulthood. And as for fostering it out, we may keep that option in reserve . . ."

The blood in the chalice bubbled fiercely for a moment, then the connection fizzled and died.

With a curse, the demon got to its feet, set off towards another cow, and repeated the process.

"Apologies, Master. If we were allowed to use human blood . . ."

"I know that it would create a better connection, yes, as well as give you a good time, would it not?"

"Yes, Master . . ."

"Then why do I insist on this method? Answer me."

"At this stage of the plan, I know we must keep a low profile, Master. But . . ."

"I will hear no more whining. John Winchester will be left alone, for now. You will remain in place against the possibility of his return, and coordinate the others I will send to watch him. The point of an experiment is to see what outcomes are generated by unexpected events." Azazel paused to savor his own words.

"The man may strive against fate all he likes," he sonorously intoned, "but he will never thwart us. Our Lord will walk the earth, and we will see Him bring an end to it."

"Yes, my Master. Hail Lucifer, in all his glory."

The connection died again, this time for good. With a grunt, the demon inhabiting Missouri Moseley got to its feet, cursing again as it stepped in a cow patty on the way out.

* * *

**_22 years later . . ._ **

* * *

John waited in the shadowy room. It had been two decades since he'd last left Lawrence. It had been his home, once. Now his skin crawled with the danger just of being in this place.

He heard the door open, and the footsteps getting closer. She was talking. He had to pretend that this was an innocent conversation, pretend that he trusted her, until she was in the right place.

He'd learned the hard way, with Bill Harvelle's death, how dangerous it could be to show himself to a demon too soon. The price for his carelessness had been paid in the blood and grief of others.

Mary's ghost all those years ago had been right to tell him to run. He hadn't been experienced enough, then, to fight this battle.

". . . John Winchester, I could just slap you. Why won't you go talk to your children?" Missouri's voice had always been high and sweet. There was no trace of lying in it now.

"I want to. You have no idea how much I wanna see ‘em. But I can’t. Not yet." John turned to look at her, something hard growing in his eyes. "Not until I know the truth." _Just step towards me,_ he thought. _One more step, that's all . . ._

After a moment, Missouri snorted expressively. She stepped further into the room. This was what John had been waiting for. Halfway across the room, she ran into a solid, invisible barrier. "What . . .?"

"Above you," John said, standing up from the sofa. Missouri looked up and saw a Devil's Trap painted on her ceiling. She screamed, suddenly, in fury. "No!"

"I have a lot of questions," John said, measuring his words. "I think you might have some answers for me."

The demon whipped around, all pretense of being a helpful old woman gone. "Burn in Hell!"

"You first," he promised, low. John swiftly doused the demon in holy water and, while it shuddered in agony, tied it to a chair. "I want to know what your boss has planned for my son. And then I want to know how to destroy that son of a bitch. The only choice you have left is how much pain you want to feel before I get rid of you. Understand?"

"You should go back to chasing your tail, burning bones and chopping up monsters," the demon in Missouri taunted.

"You should never have got this far, and it'll never amount to anything in the end. If you stop now, we might even let you live."

John upended a canteen over its head. Holy water steamed wildly off its skin.

"It doesn't matter, you fool!" the demon shrieked. "You think there's anything you could possibly do to stop it? We will win! The world will burn with our Master's wrath!" The demon stopped abruptly. It shut its mouth.

"Keep going," John growled grimly.

The demon sneered at him, and he raised another holy water flask threateningly. It shrank back as far as it could against the ropes binding it.

"What did you need Sam for?" John demanded.

"His looks," the demon said with a nasty smirk.

John looked unimpressed.

The demon scowled. "Come on, as if I'd tell you that easily! You want answers, John, you're going to have to work for them. You got the stomach for that, for carving your old friend here into bloody pieces?"

"Nice try, but I think I'll stick with what I know works," John told it, casually tossing another splash of holy water from his flask onto the demon. It dissipated in a puff of steam as the demon tried to keep itself still, hissing a little as it failed. John stared grimly down at it. "Fine, you don't want to talk about Sam, then tell me this: the yellow-eyed demon can be killed?"

"By you? Not likely." The demon paused, tilted its head. John recognized, with a sickening swoop of his stomach, that whatever it was thinking of saying next would be a double-edged sword, at best.

Or it could be a trap.

But even knowing that, John still had to listen. He'd been working with next to no intel on what he was fighting for so long; he couldn't pass up a chance for more.

"There is one way," the demon said slowly, drawing it out. Toying with him, and making sure he knew it. "A gun that can kill anything. Figure out where old Samuel Colt's effects went, and you'll have the means for your revenge, John Winchester."

John didn't breathe. "And the catch?"

The demon smirked but pointedly didn't say anything. John stepped in and poured the second flask over its face. The runnels of steaming water ran down the demon's cheeks and dripped onto its chest as it screamed.

"All right, all right! Just to get this over with," the demon panted, trying to recover lost face. It waited until John leaned closer, and whispered, "We want that gun too. Your fellow hunters have been hiding it. Find it and bring it into play, and when you screw up?" It licked its lips, sneering. "We _will_ take it from you."

John smiled, grimly. "I don't screw up."

The demon sneered up at him. "You will. You think we don't know your weak spot? Or really, spots. There are two of them, your sons, after all?"

"My sons are elsewhere, I've made sure of that. And they're not weak. You won't be able to get to them."

"Oh, it's sweet, seeing you delude yourself, Johnny. But I think we both know that your valiant, devoted Dean will charge straight into Hell for you, or for Sam." The demon paused, and grinned. "And Sam? The best part is that your sweet little Sammy was born to be ours. He's going to do everything we want, just exactly according to plan." The demon paused again. It cocked its head, and a knowing, terrifying smile spread over its face. "Just like his mother did."

John felt an explosion of rage start under his breastbone and expand through his whole body. He wanted nothing in the world more than to leap across the line of the Devil's trap he'd drawn so carefully and beat the demon into a bloody mess, to make it suffer like he'd suffered, like Mary had suffered. Like their children had suffered, growing up harsh and rootless in an endless struggle.

But John didn't lose control. The demon wanted him to get physical, so it would have a chance to struggle, a shot at the devil's trap breaking.

Instead he raised a book. "Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus . . ." the syllables flowed smoothly over his tongue and he barely glanced at the book, despite never having exorcised a demon before. John believed in being prepared. The demon jerked and screamed, but John's voice didn't pause, didn't slow. Finally inky black smoke poured out of Missouri's mouth and sank into the floor. A large circle on the floor looked charred and stank of sulfur. The demon was banished back to Hell.

Missouri's body slumped. John checked, but after so many years, it was a lifeless shell. The soul of the woman who had first helped him all those years ago was long gone.

John stood and looked at the ashy circle where the demon had gone. Rage and ill will still churned in him from the demon's last words, with nowhere to go and nothing left here to fight.

"You don't know my sons," John said, finally, to the empty room. "You don't know Sam like I do. Any plan that depends on him turning evil . . ."

John shook his head. Sam had his head on straight, maybe even more than him or Dean. They'd managed that much, in all the chaos of growing up on the road, hunting. Sam and John butted heads, sure. He could be rebellious and argumentative.

But John would stake his life on it that Sam knew right from wrong, at the end of the day. When it came down to it, Sam would make the right call, as long as there was any of Sam left in him at all.

"Whatever plan you've got, it's never gonna go the way you want," John told the floor. Then he got to his feet and started to clean up.

He'd need to know if the demon's story about the gun checked out. John wanted to screw up the Demon's plans sooner rather than later, and that meant that if he had a shot at ending the bastard, he had to take it.

If the demon had some hellish future in mind for Sam . . . if his sons were being threatened . . . if the demons meant it about making the world burn . . .

Whatever John could do to stop it, he would.

He had to.

**Author's Note:**

> There's a lot of different interpretations of John based on the show, because we never do find out most of what he was going through in S1. A lot of people's takes are negative. 
> 
> My goal isn't to say that you can't interpret John as an asshole if you want, but the notion I see bandied about that he prioritized personal revenge over his sons' wellbeing? That's one that hasn't ever worked for me.


End file.
